I Did That

Chronicling The Renovations Of My Life
Archive for November 12th, 2008

Spinning Wheels

November 12th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized

I didn’t get any of my goals accomplished today.  So my goals for Thursday are now exactly like the goals from Wednesday.

I spent the whole day buying things and debating with my lovely wife.  We were weighing the pros and cons of getting Corian countertops and decided eventually to not get them.  The main reason being that although we love the look and feel of them, we were still going to be installing them on 40 year old cabinets.  Though the cabinets are solid and look reasonably good now (especially after being painted), we will probably want to replace them within about 10 years and will end up destroying the countertops then.  Since Corian costs over 4 times what laminate countertops do, we feel like it’s not really worth it if we are just going to be ripping them back up in the next decade sometime.  So we chose laminate.  In fact, we chose this laminate.  We will end up saving roughly $1700 on that decision.  Which will pay for other toys, I’m sure.

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The Kitchen

November 12th, 2008 | Category: Kitchen, Renovations

As of today we have accomplished the following things in the kitchen:

  1. Repainted the cabinets and walls
  2. Removed the countertops
That doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but it has been a load of work.  There are many nooks and crannies that needed paint and getting to them is not easy.  Every inch needed to be primed, so in actuality, the kitchen has been completely painted twice.
The countertops came off quickly and easily and there were no real surprises there.  They had been nailed down (as opposed to being screwed down) so I didn’t really have to do much besides pry them up and tote them off.
My goals for 11/12 are
  1. shim and level the cabinets
  2. pour floor leveler in kitchen (and den)
  3. nail down the new plywood
If I can get all that done, I will be thrilled.  The leveling of the cabinets is going to be tricky since they are handmade (in 1966) and not just screwed together and into the wall like most modern cabinetry is. Since they aren’t modular, getting one area to move up without everything going up is tough.  I may have to do a combination of shimming the top in the middle areas and the bottom at the ends.  They aren’t off a bunch, so I don’t think I need to worry too much about the countertops not being even relative to the cabinets.
I’m not installing the countertops myself.  We are getting Corian countertops and thought it would be smart to let the pros handle the installation.  That way if they make a mistake, it’s on them and not me.  I do have to have the cabinets conforming to Dupont’s instructions, or they won’t install them.  I was told by the guy who came out to measure for the countertops that Corian will, despite it’s thickness, mold to the shape of the cabinets over time.  If there are high spots then eventually there will be a hump in your counters.  Areas that are not properly supported can actually break.
I’ve tried and failed to scrape the old vinyl off the floor.  It’s stuck on there really well.  When someone pointed out to me that the old vinyl might contain asbestos I decided that it would be best just to level the floor out and put down new plywood, thereby encasing the old linoleum.  It’s going to raise the floor height some, but I don’t think it should interfere with anything.
After those things are done, I will start tiling.
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